


Nothing Good Will Come of This

by untldeathtakeme (LikeRebelDiamonds)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Multi, Not A Happy Ending, codependent relationship, mindfuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:26:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2183055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeRebelDiamonds/pseuds/untldeathtakeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate au. In a world where soulmates are predetermined, Abigail is Will's intended, soulmate. Her name is on his arm, and his on hers. Will, however, doesn't want to get to know her. Hannibal Lecter doesn't want him to get to know her either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Good Will Come of This

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nothing Good Will Come of This (A Fanmix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2190618) by [Cherith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherith/pseuds/Cherith). 
  * Inspired by [Nothing Good Will Come of This (A Fanmix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2190618) by [Cherith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherith/pseuds/Cherith). 



> Story to go to fanmix "Nothing Good Will Come of This" for the big bang mixup on LJ. I tried so hard to capture the beauty of her mix, the eerie angst, but I think I was in over my head. Fic was inspired by a tumblr post about how broken soulmate AUs could be, and Hannibal is nothing if not a bunch of broken people.

Will Graham was sitting on his porch the first day he saw her. Abigail Hobbs was being driven to his house in the country by her aunt. He absently rubbed his forearm. The name in scripted there hadn’t been his choice. It never was. The names appeared when whatever Power That Was decided you needed to start looking for your soulmate. People spent lives waiting for the names to appear, and then spent the moments between jobs trying to find the person with their names in their handwriting. The handwriting on Will’s arm looped across his scarred forearm, a young woman’s script not yet grown tired and lazy of repetitive signatures and changing names. As it should be.

  
As it should be. He mused. In his world, all personal relationships spun around this concept. People just didn't not marry, or at least be with, the person’s name on their arm. Will Graham had passed the age where names appear on your arm, so he thought perhaps he was meant to be alone. He was almost at peace with that. He had his work that he believed in,bringing madmen to justice. He had his dogs. Jack Crawford with the FBI kept him busy. Alana Bloom looked in on him occasionally. What else should a person ask for?

  
He didn't know how to feel as the car crunched into the gravel in front of his porch. A young woman got out, dark hair. Very young. She was twenty. Maybe. Will stood up, leaving the cup of camp coffee he’d been sipping on the porch step. He stayed on the porch step as she approached, her aunt pushing her forward. Her steps were minced. She looked so very young, youthful courage covering insecurity. Shoulders very, very straight, stressed. Will had more than a fair talent for seeing people, seeing desire in the fling of an arm. That he practiced this on the recently dead hardly mattered.

  
She looked terrified. He didn't blame her.

  
**  
“The idea of a wife upsets you. Why?” He was in Hannibal’s office. Again. Jack liked sending him there. His fingers worried over the texture of the arm rest, eyes focused somewhere around Hannibal’s knees. Will never had been very good with eye contact. With contact in general.

  
“I think it’s the idea that….there’s no choice in it. I mean, who decides who we have to spend our lives with?”

  
Almost imperceptibly, Hannibal shifted and re-crossed his legs, elegant and European even in that. If Will had been looking at his eyes, he would have taken in the casual widening of them.

  
“Though it’s immaterial to you, and to your marriage…or lack thereof…I agree with you.”

  
Will’s head snapped up, to attention. Hannibal was the first person he’d encountered who hadn’t responded to the invasive name on his arm with back slaps and joy that were incomprehensible to Will. “Will?”

  
“Hmm?”

  
“You’re damaging my chair” Will looked down, feeling his fingers clenched into the leather of the chair, feeling it give underneath is fingers, on the edge of tearing. He felt like he was being forced into a cage. He knew that was ridiculous. Abigail was his supposed soulmate. These things always seemed to work. They just did.

  
“My apologizes” he muttered.

  
“Not needed. However, it illustrates my point. You are resisting the idea of marrying someone you haven’t chosen. On the surface, this could be the usual resistance of someone who likes to control his life to an uncontrollable event, but I don’t think this is the case.” Hannibal’s words hung in the air, leaving room to slide between himself and Will, never asking for anything, merely inviting. That was Doctor Lecter’s way, to seem calm and benign, the smooth surface of a lake where something horrible lurked underneath.  
“In any case, Will. I’m here to help you work though these feelings.”

  
“Even if I don’t go through with it?” Will asked, with the air of someone asking a question they didn’t really expect there to be an answer to. Hannibal shouldn’t have answered; he thought to himself, there shouldn’t be an answer.

  
“Yes.” Came the simple reply, fraught with emotions that Will couldn’t read.

  
“I wasn’t aware there was an option.” Will’s tone was careful, but a trained eye like Hannibal’s read the hope in the shift of his weight and the sudden tensing of his body.  
The doctor smiled, and Will was for a split second very aware that the muscles of the man’s face were attached to a skeleton, and for a moment saw the skeleton answering him, not the man.

  
“There’s always a way.”

**  
Another day, another corpse. Will Graham slumped into his psychiatrist’s chair. Doctor Hannibal Lecter was a besuited man, a man who never said anything, but reflected questions to reveal things in other people. He was a psychiatrist, through and through. Will should have disliked him immensely, but he felt strangely at ease, slumped in the plush leather chair in the psychiatrist’s office.

  
“It still bothers you, the ease at which you step into the killer’s mind?”

  
Will stared at the floor. “Of course it does. Wouldn't it bother you?”

  
“I’m not the issue here, Will. You are. They sent you here for care. Though,” Hannibal’s tongue peeked just an inch out between his full lips. “I hardly think you need it.”  
“Oh, well, that’s nice.” Will said, and it was half snort.

  
“You joke but I do not believe that because you can climb into the minds of men who kill, that it makes you somehow stained.”

  
“No,” Will laughed uneasily, eyes downcast. Hannibal noted Will hadn't looked him in the eyes since he walked in, but his eyes often strayed over the details of his suit, and to his lips.

  
“If not your line of work, then what is it that you feel is the stain, Will?”

  
Will’s eyes widened, though they didn't move from Hannibal’s feet.  
“I…when I look at these men...these men who have been able to abandon themselves to what they want,” Will’s eyes lifted to Hannibal’s chest, and Hannibal leaned forward, unable to hide his interest,though he kept it more hidden than most.

  
“Yes?” Hannibal asked, eagerness restrained in his voice like a note of warmth in a glass of scotch.

  
“…they give themselves over to the impulses,” Will’s fingers dug into the arms of the chair, though he was hardly aware of it. Hannibal was. His own fingers could dig, dig so much harder.

  
“…the impulse to kill?” Eager. So eager this time even Will could pick up on it.

  
Will’s mouth opened and closed, searching for starts before a ragged whisper of “yes” passed his lips, and it felt like a dam breaking for them both.  
Hannibal stood, the movement jarring after the long, tense moments. He stood by Will.  
“The desire to kill is not a stain; it is an expression of who you are.”

  
“I’m not…”

  
“Stop denying it Will, denial serves no purpose other than to confuse and to place mental strain upon the mind,” Hannibal’s fingers rested on Will’s shoulders in a touch that shouldn’t have been sensual, but the weight, and the curl of the pads of his fingers digging into Will’s shoulder made the younger man flush. He liked the weight of the hand on his shoulder. He liked what the man was saying, the acceptance, even more.

  
He knew he shouldn't, but knowing something never stopped anyone.

  
Hannibal took a deep breath, scenting the air for the particular smell of arousal and sweat that so often came off Will Graham. He found it, as expected, and inhaled like a snake tasting for its prey. Time to go forward, then.

  
He allowed his fingers to slip over Will’s neck, which was very, very tense. He said as much and dug his fingers into the muscles of the other man’s neck. The noise that came out of Will’s mouth, a moan, unguarded and true, was a beautiful thing to hear, and Hannibal’s heart sped up.  
“So tense, Will. Has something been bothering you?”

  
“Bothering me, Doctor Lecter?” Will’s voice was a shaky half laugh. There was so much going wrong that he didn't even know where to begin with what was “bothering” him. So many uses of the word “bother”...he thought to himself, becoming distinctly aware that he was growing hard.

  
“Please, call me Hannibal.”

  
“I shouldn't... aren't there confidentiality rules to these kinds of things?” Will said, desperately stalling now. Hannibal hovered above him like the predator that Will somehow knew that he was.

  
“I’m going to cease being your psychiatrist now, Will. After all, you aren't sick or insane. You don’t need one. Call me Hannibal.” The words were so quiet, but Hannibal’s hands, impossibly smooth for a man’s, were sliding over Will’s pulse point, then under the collar of his shirt.

  
“Doctor…Hannibal…I don’t think we should..”

  
Hannibal’s hand stopped, completely, fingertips resting on Will’s sternum, where buttons were now undone. The moment vibrated between them with uncertainty and repressed desire. Both knew what it felt like, only Will didn't want to admit it.

  
“I will stop if you want me to, Will” Hannibal’s voice took on an almost teasing note, confident and knowing, “but I don’t believe you want me to. “  
Will swallowed hard, Hannibal’s fingers following the line of his throat, anticipating the move.

  
“Come Will, sexual desire is nothing to be ashamed of. “

  
“I’m not ashamed.” He wasn’t. He could care less who did what in whose bedroom. No. There was another issue here, and they both knew it. This wasn’t about sex, it was about the desires that swirled in and around Hannibal. Some dark part of Will wanted to taste blood as much as he wanted to taste Hannibal’s lips. Hannibal knew this, Will knew that Hannibal knew. They were poised on a moment, like two male ballerinas hovering over the edge of a knife.

  
“Then what?”

  
“I’m afraid of what you’ll uncover.” Will said, for the first time lifting his eyes up to look at Hannibal.

  
He looked so beautiful like that, Hannibal thought. Will’s face lifted up towards his, head resting on the back of the chair, curls falling in one eye, eyes wide with fear and anticipation and a glimmer of need trying to claw its way out. It also exposed his throat in a way that made Hannibal’s hands itch to caress the tender skin at his throat, touch it, wrap hands around it, find out what color Will’s blood was and how he bruised…

  
“Fear is the psyche’s protective reaction. You must overcome it. You must decide what you want” He was dangling possibilities in front of Will, and he could see from the posture and look in Will’s eyes that he would take it, but Will had to think he was making the choice himself.

  
It was no surprise then, when Will’s hand slid up Hannibal’s chest, and towards his neck. Will had to strain in his seat to wrap his hand around Hannibal’s neck to pull him down to his lips.

  
Hannibal smiled against Will’s lips, victorious. The kiss lengthened, lips seeking lips and melding together, pressing and seeking. Will opened his mouth and like the predator he was, Hannibal took the opening and struck, tongue exploring Will’s mouth.

  
Will groaned and pulled away, his chest heaving slightly. Hannibal saw it. Will knew he saw it. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, - any of this but he didn’t care. Hannibal’s kisses were like electricity, making his skin stand up, making him aware of every inch of skin he had. The sensation was addicting, and he would be damned if he didn’t want more. Will wasn’t much of a liar, even to himself, he liked how Hannibal felt.

  
The smirk on Hannibal’s lips was subtle but unmistakable, and told Will that Hannibal knew exactly what he was thinking. Lines at the corner of his eyes crinkled and it shouldn’t have been atractive, but it was. Hannibal’s fingertips stroked the knuckles of Will’s hand, still on the chair arm.

  
“You liked that, didn’t you, Will?” the question should have seemed so professional, but there was a warmth in the timbre of Hannibal’s voice, a slight setting of his upper teeth into his full lips that Will was not staring at, that said otherwise. In the back of his mind, Will knew he shouldn’t believe that: Hannibal was a beautiful manipulator and he knew it, but he wanted to believe the warmth that he read in the voice, and the lust he saw in Hannibal’s eyes and face. So he did.

  
Hannibal’s grin grew even wider. “Shall we retire to more comfortable quarters? I was planning on making dinner tonight, and I would be honored if you would join me.” Hannibal’s eyes down Will’s chest suggested that more would be eaten than dinner and Will flushed even as he nodded acceptance.

 

**

Abigail Hobbs knew her intended rarely slept. She'd gone through his wallet once, out of curiosity. She'd felt dirty after she'd done it, but the stacks of gas station receipts for coffee and canned dog food with late night timestamps told her he didn't sleep. At least not during normal hours.

  
She knew he suffered from night terrors. His eyes were always so hooded. In her bedroom, she flicked the light on and looked at herself in the mirror. Round cheeks. Round eyes. Like a girl from a story. She wondered again if he was cheating on her. She supposed she wouldn't be surprised. She looked so innocent. Was she going to bore him? They hardly ever spoke much, not that Will had ever spoken much, the introvert that he was.

He was over now, at her apartment. They were supposed to be getting to know each other. Everyone thought that. Everyone she knew was planning her wedding. She sighed loudly, knowing ‘getting to know' Will Graham wasn't going to happen tonight. It wasn’t late – he never came to her house in the late hours. She didn't bother putting on the tv. The distance she’d felt between her and Will was not just his work. She knew it sent him into a bad place mentally, a place full of blood and killers, but there was something else. She didn't know if she was more disturbed by the fact that there was something separating them or that she didn't know what that something was.

  
She made a cup of tea, then sat and considered his actions. Long hours. Uncommunicative. He seemed unwilling to get to know her. Another woman perhaps would automatically assume he was with another woman, but this didn't feel like that. It felt like him just wanting to spend less and less time with her, like there wasn’t someone else, YET, he just didn't know what to say to her, like she was being shut out of something he was a part of. Yes. That was it. She was being shut out and didn't know how to handle it.

  
“Restless?” his voice came out of the darkness, startling her. She dropped her tea on her lap. She gasped as the still-hot liquid hit her skin, burning over the hem of her skirt. Will uncoiled himself from where he was leaning against the door frame, going to the kitchen for a towel and back to her. He knelt and pressed the towel to her thighs. But he didn't say a single word. He blotted the liquid carefully, tenderly, and lifted the towel. His eyes traveled over her skin and she felt herself flush, but he seemed only focused on the faint reddening patch on her pale skin, only on the burn, as if it were a pattern he were cataloging.

  
Where are you? She thought at him, as he stared at her thighs in the most non-sexual way anyone had ever looked at her thighs. Sweaty curls were just in front of her and she wanted so much to reach out and smooth it away from his forehead, but fear stayed her hand. She didn’t know what to say. He was right here, fingers still on her knee, but she had the overwhelming feeling of being miles away from him, that he was somewhere else in his head, and even if she slapped him he wouldn’t notice.

  
It was a moment. It was a scene. Will on his knees in front of her, her seated. It should have been beautiful, it should have been a moment of connection, of two people coming together and touching each other and perhaps leading into something more romantic, more connective, but instead she just felt like she was being studied. Rather like a corpse on a shiny silver table. She shivered as she felt that. That thought was unpleasant.

  
She touched Will’s head, spoke his name softly. His eyes snapped up to hers, a flash of guilt in them that only someone literally so close to him could see, a tightening of his lips together for just a moment, as if disgusted with himself.

  
It had only been a moment, but it seemed as if they had stood quivering together, waiting for something.

  
“I’m sorry. Does it still hurt? Should I get something?” he asked, as if he knew it was something socially acceptable to ask. She looked for concern, in his eyes and listened for it in his voice but it simply was not there.

  
I’d rather you leave me if you’re going to, she thought, but kept it to herself. Her voice was soft when she answered that he was fine. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. He stood up without any gesture, no brush of her knee, no squeeze, not even a sigh of relief, as he once would have done. He didn't even turn around to ask if she was sure she was okay before he slipped back into the dark of the hallway.

  
She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. it wasn’t bad enough yet, it just felt like she were waiting breathlessly for it to get that bad. She wished he would just say something, leave if he were going to, SAY something, anything. It sat in her chest, making it tight like a band wrapped around her. Breathing was still easy. That wasn’t fair. Wasn’t it supposed to hurt, make you want to scream? She just wanted him to say something, even if it was to leave.

  
She continued to sit in the chair. She didn't make another cup of tea. She hardly felt like moving. Moving would have been doing something, moving would have been tempting some god of fate to do something, and she knew when you tempted fate, something awful always happened. The teacup crunched under her feet when she finally did get up, hours later. Will hadn’t even picked it up before he had left, which was strange. He'd always struck her as careful.

  
**  
“I can’t do this.” Will’s words seeped into Hannibal’s mind, but they didn't enter, not at first at least.

  
“What do you mean?” Ever the psychologist, his first instinct was to question, while he thought and considered both the body cues and the true meaning behind what was spoken.

  
“Very simple. This. “Will said, pointing to the pieces of clothing that were scattered around the room. They were still in bed, and Hannibal was presently talking to Will’s back as Will lay on his stomach, arms around the pillow and head turned towards Hannibal.

  
“You and I? As sexual partners?”

  
“Yes, that” And the other. The words were unsaid but Hannibal heard them anyway. He rose from the bed and pulled a silk dressing gown from where it lay on a chair by the bed. Pulling the sash together he turned to face Will, whose face was now turned away. Hannibal looked at his curls. Everyone did, he knew, but no one saw those curls like he did: covered with sweat, sometimes with blood. Will Graham was his perfect person, his soul mate. No one else could understand the sticky sweat of adrenaline that coursed through his veins when someone who deserved to die, died. No one could understand the exquisite perfection of a perfect stalk, the perfect setup, the perfect execution of the perfect design for the perfect kill. What he and Will did was perfect.

  
What they did after wasn’t bad either.

  
He reached out to trace his fingers across Will’s back carefully. Will liked the sensation and it was often his method of asking Will to come back from whatever headspace he was in, wherever his mind went. He traced over small scratches and an odd bruise or two. He felt the muscles in Will’s back clench. Will was aware of his weakness, and was aware that it was known. He was expecting Hannibal to play upon it.

  
Hannibal frowned. He didn't like being that predictable.

  
“Yes.” Will’s voice was hushed, his face pointed away.

  
Look at me, Hannibal said, fingers continuing to trace Will’s back, but this time it wasn’t working.  
“Yes, what?”

  
“Yes to the end of this.” The words floated back over Will’s shoulder and to Hannibal’s ears, worming their way in and settling into reality.

  
“I don’t want you to go,” Hannibal said. Will sat up, pushing the blankets aside.

  
“Clearly, Doctor Lecter, what you want are things I can no longer give”

  
And with those words he was gone, and Hannibal was left looking at the bed where Will had laid more times than Will cared to admit. The sheets were crumpled. Will had kicked them. The pillow still had wrinkles from where Will had gripped it as he said what he must have considered to be a goodbye.

  
He wouldn’t beg, it wasn’t him, but part of him had considered the idea. The thought of never touching Will again was unsettling. It was unsettling that it was so unsettling. He considered that his need for Will was outweighing his rationality but pushed that idea from his mind quickly. That he was still considering his sanity meant he still had it. After all, only the insane never considered the idea that they might be insane.

  
He rose from the bed and watched Will gather his clothes, part of him reeling with every item that was picked up. The suit jacket he’d bought Will after his first kill. The boots Will had picked out when they had had to stop at that little supply store for a new hunting knife. He made eye contact with Will, raised an eyebrow.

  
“Will…don’t go” the words were simple, and simply said, and as close to an admission as he was about to give. They stopped Will, buttoning his shirt. Something passed over the younger man’s dark eyes, he pressed his lips together and thought.

  
“Why?”  
I need you. The words, again, remained unspoken, as so many things were being unspoken between them. The moment pressed on, a scale on the verge of tipping. If he pressed the right way, could he get Will to stay? He doubted it. Will Graham was a man who stood by decisions, at least until after the acts were done. If he had chosen to leave, then for this moment there would be no point in trying to change his mind.

  
“Because, as I said, I don’t want you to go”

  
“That’s not a good enough reason, Doctor Lecter” Will continued buttoning his shirt up, Hannibal’s eyes following his fingers up the shirt, and as each inch of chest was shut off from his view. With each inch he felt calm come over him. It should have been anger, but no, it was simple determination. This wasn’t going to last. Will Graham was too perfect to lose, even if Will himself didn't know that. They fit together like to puzzle pieces, soaked in blood. Will could give him emotion l insight that sometimes even he could not see, some bit of humanity and heart. Watching Will kill was INTERESTING, because Will still felt everything keenly, it was like an intoxicating aroma and Hannibal was quickly realizing he was more than addicted. The sight of him covered in blood wasn’t terribly bad either.

  
Will left, and the sound of the door shutting should have upset him, again. Should have bothered him. But no. Because he knew that sound wasn’t forever. As he gathered the bedclothes, plans were already forming in his mind. A smile curved his full mouth, and his tongue touched his lips a second as he considered the things he and Will would be doing when Will came back to him. Glorious things. Delicious things that would make other people shiver and shudder. And then he would make Will Graham shiver and shudder, with a touch, with a look, with the knowledge that he needed Hannibal Lecter, and Hannibal Lecter needed him. All would be well.

  
**  
What am I doing? Was her first thought, sitting in the car where she had followed Will. Spying. Im not a a spy. I don’t want to spy on people. Part of her didn't even want to be here, she had a deep feeling she didn't want to know what Will was doing. But she had to. In her world, soulmates were the end of romantic life. It just was. People who broke that rule were rebels. She couldn’t even begin to think of what society had done to those, how they had been shunned. Will was hers. She was still young, but already beginning to feel protective over the man destined to be hers. The craving was one both for Will himself, for acceptance. He was impossible to pin down for a moment, to understand, and that just drove her further on. Fingers curled over her steering wheel as she set down to watch, to wait, and to wonder what she would do with the information she found. Was he with someone else? The building was a professional building, hardly the place for a romantic rendezvous, but her insides churned with worry anyway. He was doing something, she was sure of it. Woman’s intuition perhaps or perhaps the way he had stopped talking to her, where once he had been kind.

  
**  
Hannibal watched outside the window at the car parked across the street. The young woman inside shifted nervously, kept touching the gear shifts, as if it they weren’t right. She was extremely nervous. He mused to himself, bringing a wine glass to his lips. He had stopped seeing patients for the day and had called Will, who had reluctantly decided to drop by Hannibal’s office. They had things to discuss. Will was being followed. He had no doubt that the young lady sitting uncomfortably in the car and waiting for Will was Abigail, Will’s “meant to be”  
She would have to be dealt with. More important at the moment, however, was bringing Will back. He turned around to smile at the man passed out in one of the chairs he used during practice. A gift for Will. The potential to right several wrongs the man had done. Hannibal smiled tightly. Will would not be able to resist.

  
**  
Will knew it had to stop, even as he wiped blood off his fingers. The man had been a lawyer who charged far, far too much and threatened anyone who threatened to expose him. He had also been unbelievably sloppy in covering up a murder. Also, he had horrible taste in clothing. Will grimaced, realizing how much his thinking was beginning to resemble Hannibal’s. The idea sent shivers down his spine.  
Hannibal noticed the delicate shiver, and walked over, fingers tracing down his again- lover’s back. He noticed the tension in Will’s jaw, and touched the stubble there.

  
“Something troubling you?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“What?”

  
“I don’t know.”

  
You. This. Us. That your touch erases everything I thought I knew.

  
Hannibal pressed his lips together, knowing that Will was more self-aware than that. Will was avoiding the question.

  
“The sight of blood on your hands still disturbs you.” It was an observation, not a question. Hannibal rarely asked questions unless they were deflections, or deliberately engineered to make someone think.  
Will rubbed his fingers together absently, wondering when he started wearing leather gloves. They had been a gift from Hannibal, after a particularly delicious weekend away that was full of bruises and kisses, lovemaking, wine, pulled hair and food that would make a world-class chef weep. There was blood on the gloves.

  
“Does blood ruin leather?” he asked, absently.

  
Hannibal paused a beat, noticing the gloves, remembering picking them out well. They were thick, unlike the thin delicate ones he himself favored. They were covered in blood, much like Will himself was. This entire conversation was starting to sound like a metaphor.

  
“Yes, it does”

  
“Ah.” Will said, simply. His voice held things unsaid, that he wanted to say. Hannibal wondered if he wasn’t feeling like the glove himself at the moment, stained.

  
“The unease will pass as you come into your own.” Hannibal slipped Will’s hand in between his own, cradling it as someone would an injured bird.

  
Will still stared at his hand, eyes flicking to Hannibal’s hands. They were deep brown, Will was deep in his head and Hannibal’s hands were around his. Hannibal’s hands were always near his. Hannibal was always near him. The unease wasn’t coming from the killing, he realized. At least, not completely. The unease was coming from the relationship he found himself tangled up in. They murdered people together, then slunk off to corners and wallowed in each other’s body and blood. The murders didn't upset him half as much as realizing as he was stained, with Hannibal’s body, soul and mind.

  
**  
Will and Abigail sat on his porch. Will often sat on his porch. A Labrador mutt sat at his feet, a pitbull mix’s head was buried into Abigail’s side. Dogs had excellent judges of character, Will knew. He should take that as endorsement. Thought not superstitious in anyway, Will trusted the judgment of dogs more than he did most people. Dogs were open, he reflected, and truer, in ways that humans were simply incapable of.

  
“You can tell me what’s going on, you know.” Abigail said out of what seemed like nowhere to Will but had he been paying attention to her lips, her fidgeting, would have known that she had wanted to say something for awhile now. But he wasn’t. He was thinking of Hannibal and guilt washed over him for that, as it had so many times.

  
He looked at her, at her open face with surprisingly intelligent eyes. He could tell her. By rights, he probably should. Looking at her now, he was struck with the notion that she may have known what was going. Or at least known something was going on. She had shown herself intelligent. And, more than that, he realized, she seemed at least somewhat reluctant about this whole thing. She at least was questioning his suitability as a mate. That, he reflected with a curl of one side of his lip, was the smartest thing anyone could do. Will Graham was broken and he knew it. He was a dark figure in a sea of blood, helmed by an even darker man who led him like Charon though the Styx to even darker temptations and tortures. He shouldn’t drag her along with him, and he knew he couldn’t drag her along with him.

  
The thought of telling someone everything that was going on sat in his chest like a tiny rock, hard against his sternum. Telling someone could be such relief, a relief to the anxiety and worries of the dark futures he saw spreading before and within him. Telling someone might help. He might be able to finally understand whether everything he felt, every mixed up chaotic emotion that he felt knitting him and Hannibal Lecter closer and closer together was normal, or were they truly some sort of paired monsters.

  
Sometimes he felt like he was drowning in everything he felt for Hannibal, with Hannibal. He was addicted to the experiences that came with being with Hannibal, and somewhere in his rational mind, he knew it. He knew you talked about addictions. At the same time however, he didn’t want to be addicted, much less actually SEEN as addicted. He was the sort of man who prided himself on what he knew, on his intelligence, and what he had accomplished. To be seen as an addict was not pleasing at all to him. Addicts were persons out of control, spiraling down from rational thought and logic into something they couldn’t comprehend, where their bodies overruled their mind. They were at the mercy of chemical reactions, experiences, chemicals, and the people that they associated with those feelings and reactions and chemicals.

  
He wasn’t one of them, he told himself. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

  
“Nothing that I can think of,” he said, deliberately trying to keep his voice light. Abigail wasn’t buying it, the jut of her chin and raise of her eyebrows said so, even to someone as preoccupied as he was. He stared out into the woods, as people were want to do when sitting side by side, but separated nonetheless. No, he couldn’t tell her. Not only would she not understand how it felt, what it brought out in him, the desperation, the need for the control, the beauty that was created when he and Hannibal hunted, and the utter masterpieces created when they shared the fruits of that hunt and of each other, she would be horrified. He didn’t think he could stand to see a look of pure horror on her face. Abigail Hobbs was not meant for someone like him, despite what the writing on both their wrists said, he decided. She was meant for a gentler, more balanced person.

  
Or at least one who would pay more attention, he thought bitterly.

  
“Are you sure?” he heard the question, and felt it echo in his mind, seeming to bounce in his skull. Was he sure? No. The things he felt sure of were becoming fewer and fewer as the days shortened towards fall. The first fallen leaves moved in the wind in front of them both, hovering together for a moment before a cold blast seperated them again.

  
“Yes.” Was his final answer.

**  
Will rolled over and pinned Hannibal on his back, a sharp blade gleaming in his hand. Hannibal’s face was smooth as usual, but curiosity shone in his eyes, almost a departuree from the mask he wore, even during he and Will’s times together.

  
“You’re being overly dominant tonight, Will. Is there something you’d like to tell me?” he asked in his infuriatingly calm voice. Couldn’t he see the hatred that was curled inside Will? Couldn’t he feel it inside, feel it radiating off Will’s skin? Will couldn’t understand how it could be missed. He looked down at Hannibal Lecter and all he saw now was the face of the man he couldn’t leave, that made him do horrible things.  
No. The man that made him WANT to do horrible things, and that made him sick. He knew he couldn’t blame Hannibal for what the blood on his fingers, the blood he saw in his dreams at night and his waking dreams during the day, but he could blame him for whispering in his ears that it was okay to do the things they did. He could blame him for pushing him; he could blame him for being there and being so desirable, so easy to talk to, so good looking in his suit.

  
Hannibal paused the easy pause of someone who knew he had the upper hand. Will wouldn’t strike, and he would, and was, staking his life on it. Will Graham was a man who murdered, yes, but he did it selectively, and went through so much guilt afterwards Hannibal knew he wouldn’t kill him. Besides, Will was attached. Will’s resentment and borderline hatred was obvious, and were he not attached, he would have simply turned Hannibal in to Jack Crawford and the FBI without a word and washed his hands of the entire thing. Part of Will’s mentality was that he stayed to punish himself for what he had done, part of it was that he felt Hannibal was the only person who could explain what Will did, the only person who could, ironically, make Will feel less like a monster and more like a selective chef. A conassour, not a killer. Hannibal’s grin widened.

  
“Do you hate me now, Will?” the question pressed into Will’s thoughts. Hannibal’s eyes bore into Will’s, steely and sure and Will’s eyes dropped first, just as Hannibal knew they would. A manicured hand rose, and wrapped around Will’s on the blade of the knife. He pressed their hands together and pressed the blade just into his skin, drawing a fine, fine line of blood. Hannibal didn’t miss the flare of Will’s eyes at the sight, the sudden intake of breath, the dilation of his eyes.

  
“Do you? Do you wish to cause me harm?” the knife pushed further and Will’s tongue flicked out, touching his lips. Hannibal felt the pressure of Will’s hand on his and felt his own heartbeat speed up. There was a minute chance Will would surprise him, but it was so small. Still, the thrill was there.

  
And he knew the answer. He could see the answer glittering in Will’s and the shake of his hand. Will did. It was an aphrodisiac and Hannibal pushed up, ignoring the sting of the knife blade and grabbed Will’s hair, pressing a hard kiss to the other man’s lips. He felt the pressure of the blade against his skin wobble; press harder a moment, then not as hard, then wobble as Will’s reserve and his desire fought themselves in his mind, and in his hands. Will ripped his face away from Hannibal’s and stared down at the other man, disgusted by the lazy, triumphant smirk on Hannibal’s face. He was also disgusted by the fact that Hannibal was right. He could feel the weakness and grip of his own fingers tightening and slackening in time with his resolve. He hated this man so much, the idea of making him bleed as Hannibal had made him bleed was so, so very attractive. Will had become very good at making people bleed.

  
But that’s exactly what Hannibal wanted. He knew that as well.

  
“Yes,” Will croaked out, fingers loosening even as he said it, not because he didn’t want to, but because the impulse to kiss down the line of blood that he had drawn on Hannibal’s neck was becoming overwhelming. Hannibal’s hand wrapped around his, Will felt a new callus on one of the man’s fingers that hadn’t been there last week, and pulled it away from his throat. The knife clattered to the bed with a soft sound to their sides, and Hannibal’s hand wrapped around Will’s, bringing it to his throat.

  
“Then do it.” The standoff was very very clear. “But when you mean to truly hurt someone, Will, it must be personal. The act of rage wounding is intensely…intimate” Hannibal’s voice dropped on the word ‘intimate’ and Will felt himself stirring in his pants, despite everything going through his mind. His fingers tightened reflexively on Hannibal’s throat. Personal. Yes. It would be personal, he knew, even as his fingers moved of their own accord and down Hannibal’s bare chest, returning to the rhythms of their sexual desires. He would make it personal. Not here. Not like this. Even as he bit into Hannibal’s shoulder, he knew the returning bite would be much much worse, and like everything involving Hannibal Lecter, he would want it. Only now the focus had changed. Now he wanted to hurt the man.  
Personally.

  
And he swore, even as Hannibal’s hands caressed his stomach and lower, that he would.

  
**  
Hannibal’s voice was beginning to grate on his nerves. He started, coffee cup frozen where it was lifted up to his lips. Had he just thought that? Yes, yes he had. He inhaled deeply, not wanting to believe the emotion that had just rushed though him. He didn’t want to believe that he felt that, that hat was who he had become. He wasn’t that person, who chafed and rubbed at little people for little maneuvers.  
It was just that his had already happened so many times. His fingers curled around the edges of the coffee cup, and he found himself trying hard to breathe. He told himself, because he could feel the anger rising from his stomach to his tongue, and already knew how short-tempered he was. He wasn’t going to say anything, no he wasn’t, he wasn’t.

  
“Are all the people of the world so petty that they can’t spare one little thing?”

  
And just like that, a snap blew. He had heard it too many times. He got up from the couch with a violent movement, for some reason unable to stay where he was.

  
“You don’t have to leave in such an angry way, Will. It’s fine if you don’t want to listen to me, but you needn’t be so angry about it. I never asked that you listen when you didn’t want to”

His hand stayed on the doorknob, anger curling in his chest and making his tongue lash out. He was hardly conscious of thinking, reacting merely to the bitter tone of voice and accusatory look in his eyes. “Why not,” he said, “you do it all the time. So you constantly remind me”

  
“I’m terribly sorry. I will never mention it again,” Hannibal’s voice had dropped into ice. He sighed, hand now gripping the doorknob, knowing damn well he wanted him to go after him, but not wanting to at all. He didn’t want to back down. He knew the cold shoulder would last for days.

  
He had feeling, he knew he did. Right now, from the way his fingers were digging into the doorknob, they were homicidal. He stared at his fingers, the tension and the ratcheted state of his emotions. He was a surprisingly physical person when he was angered or upset, and when they fought he had him seeing not stars, but his fingers wrapped around her neck, screaming.

The image overtook him and he held onto it for a moment, both scared and excited. His reaction to anger or frustration with her was simply TO MAKE IT STOP, and Hannibal had made him so mad. He thought about his fingers, wrapping round that soft neck, the neck he liked to kiss, oh he would probably enjoy that part, he always did get off on seeing Will’s anger expressed, but this time, oh this time it wouldn’t be a pretend choking. Oh no. they would have been fighting, and he would suddenly have just grabbed his throat, edges of his nails digging in, feeling Hannibal’s pulse jump under his the bend in the joint of his fingers and those dark eyes widen as he took in the sneer of his lip, the mat of his hair and the narrowing of his eyes. True anger always did out, and when he growled at her, in his head, he would know that he mean it, and even Hannibal Lecter would reconsider his position.

  
In Will’s mind, he would whimper just a little bit, and realize that Will saw though his manipulations. His finger would dig in, deadly and serous, deadly serious, and Hannibal’s vision would start to go black around the edges. Hannibal would lay pressure on just the right point and remove Will from his chest in reality but in Will’s he was strong and it didn’t matter. Hannibal’s fingers would try to pry his off, struggling and grunting (as close as Hannibal Lecter would come to whimpering) all the same, at the same time, a slight light of panic coming into his eyes as knowledge of what Will now was and how angry he was mixed in his mind.

  
Within a breathless moment, Hannibal’s hands would drop, and his eyes would close, but in his worst dreams he didn’t’ stop there. He could feel himself getting hard now, and it brought flaming cheeks to his cheek but he couldn’t quite stop himself. He reached down and palmed himself though his jeans, a mix of guilt and pleasure leading him into his bedroom, where he lay down and thought about what he had just thought about. He ran his fingers up and down himself, thinking of the way Hannibal’s flesh would squeeze under his hands. He was ashamed for thinking such things, but even more ashamed by his arousal, and that, somehow, made it even more delicious. He was sick, he knew it, but it felt so good, the idea possessed him, the soft flesh of Hannibal’s throat under his hands.  
His hand curled around himself and he picked up the pace slightly, imagining the convulsions, then the stillness. His body would fall, right against him, and a strange satisfaction welled up in inside him and he moved his hand faster. When his release came it was violent, and accompanied by an image of her eyes closed, forever closed and, more importantly, his lying, manipulating mouth never hurting Will or anyone else again.

  
He opened his mouth and stared at the celling in disgust with him. He had discovered himself to be capable of being rage, lust for a man who could kill him, blood lust, the release of the kill and the fact that there was little he wouldn’t do (or at least once upon a time wouldn’t do) to not feel like a monster. He hadn’t believed he was capable of something like this. Only sickos and rapists got hard thinking about hurting someone, only real whack jobs actually jacked off to it. But he had done it, he couldn’t deny it.

  
That, and the memory of all the hours Hannibal had spent lecturing him on his temper and how he was out of control with it made him angry again. It was only him that seemed to bring this out in him. Sure other people made him angry and he bit his lip, but no one more so than Hannibal. Hannibal was a manipulative cold, ice monster of a man, a thing that killed without a touch of remorse.  
He rolled over, disgusted with himself for everything he had done and thought in the past hour, and beyond. He knew Hannibal would ignore him for a day or two and regret was beginning to seep into his thoughts, like it always did. He hated that Hannibal made him so angry, he hated that he allowed himself to go off, but he had no idea how to stop the impulse. It made him weak. It was like being rubbed the wrong way for too long; after awhile you just start reacting on instinct and things fly out of your mouth. They hurt you, so instead of licking your wounds and crying like they do, you fire back with all the will and intention (sometimes subconscious, more often not) of hurting them.

  
He sighed and threw the covers over his head. He would pay for this later. The hunt would be fantastic, dramatic and would push him beyond where he was. It was how Hannibal punished him; he forced Will to bloody his hands and his mind even more. Worse, Will new, is Hannibal made him want to do it, he pushed and prodded what was already hidden down deeply in himself. He could hope that maybe this time there would be no retribution, but he knew better. The little incident he’d just come up with proved to Will he was falling away from himself, faster than he’d ever imagined possible.  
A cold wind blew in and he shivered, turning over and trying to forget, but the image of his hands around Hannibal’s neck followed into his dreams…

 

**  
Will set the pen to his lips. He knew so many things, where to put a gun to someone’s throat to make him talk, more breeds of dog than anyone rightly should know, how the layers of skin looked when each was peeled away from the other, but this is something else entirely. The paper in front of him is addressed to Abigail, he had gotten that far.  
How do you tell someone whose life has been built around a future that was with you, that there would be no future. He’d written it twice already, and it just wasn’t working. He threw the paper away and decided he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. There had to be another way.

  
As if summoned by his thoughts, Abigail walked into the room. He looked up, very very startled to see her. The look on her face was cooler than he was used to, hate had crept into her features and it squeezed what was left of his heart to see it.

  
“Abigail. Good. I wanted to talk to you.”

  
“To tell me we can’t be together? Or to leave me for your fuck murder buddy?” her voice had gone completely cold, but she didn't stop. “Or to ask me to join you? Or to make sure I never do?”

  
Her heart beat in her throat, he could see it. He stood up and pressed the space between them, instinctively seeking to gain control of the situation that he felt spinning out of control, disproportionably.  
“Abigail…”

  
“Save it. I know what you’ve been doing.” That coldness that he had never wanted to see on her was now spreading to her eyes. “I’m not quite as naive as you and Hannibal think I am.” There was hurt under those words, hurt and betrayal that somehow managed to get under the skin he thought he had been developing.

  
He took a deep breath, trying to think but unable to. Paradoxically, Will still hated hurting people who didn't deserve it. Abigail was, of course, one of those people.

  
“And I’m not going to let you do that anymore” her jaw hung slightly low, parted with worry though she tried not to let it show. Her eyes were wet but she wasn’t about to let that stop her. She moved to the door and Will, unthinking, moved to block her. There was no way he could allow that, he knew that much, in his confused mind he knew at least that.

  
She looked up at him, eyes like a doe and he wondered if this was how Hannibal felt all the time. He didn't want that feeling, but instinct was a powerful thing and he wasn’t going to let her leave and ruin his plans. He also simply didn’t want her involved.

  
“You can’t do that” he said, jaw tight.

  
“Watch me.” She said, trying to be openly defiant. Hannibal would have called it quaint, quoted something historical or physiological. Will just wanted the tension and the fear of discovery to stop.  
“I can’t let you do that,” and, though tired eyes, he watched a hand with dirty fingernails, a hand that didn't seem like his own, wrap around her thin forearm. She tensed, he felt every movement now. They were both hyperaware of the situation, of each other, and there was a strange intimacy in that, that they had never had.

  
He could see her pulse.

  
“I have to,” she whispered in a tone of someone who was scared she may have just made a horrible mistake. A fatal one.

  
That she didn't trust him…that she thought him capable of that level of danger to her flashed though Will and it saddened and angered him. It was his own fault, he knew, but looking in the mirror is never easy as blaming someone else, whomever was at hand.

  
“Will…let me go. I’m going to go.” There was something left of concern under her eyes, under the hate and under the fear she was still concerned about him. Time seemed to stall for a moment as he thought. If she left, there was no telling what she would do. Everything he had would be taken away and he would likely end up not only in jail, but on Death Row. He wouldn’t have any ground to stand on at all, as it was, all he had was a loose plan. He wouldn’t have his freedom, his dogs, Hannibal…his eyes went unfocused as thoughts of Hannibal rose up unbidden, his smell, his touch, the way those clever fingers twisted into his hair and the rush that went through him when Hannibal smiled approvingly at him.

  
The way he planned to burn all that out of Hannibal.

  
He couldn’t lose that.

  
“No."

  
Abigail now began to pull her arm away, forcibly. “Yes Will, I –“

  
“I said. NO” Will said, louder, still awash in visions of everything he would lose, fear and worry fueling him into something stronger than he usually was. He pushed Abigail away from the door and down.  
She tripped; fell back on the upturned corner of the carpet. Fell.

  
It was over before he could move, could follow after the line of her fall, and Abigail lay by an overturned table, its corner bloodied from where her head struck it at fatal velocity.  
Something in his chest broke and he stumbled against the door, sliding down against it, whispering “No” again and again. As if that chant would bring her back. AS if that would undo what he had done. It wouldn’t.

  
But he didn't stop for a long time.

  
**  
Hannibal laid down the plates in front of Will, who stared at the food for a moment before picking up his fork carefully, every move orchestrated with the intent to not let on that he didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to be in Hannibal’s dining room, in his house, (in his bed) or in his life at all. Something inside Will had fallen off with Abigail’s death at his hand, and though he had tried to find it in a kill, in Hannibal’s arms, even in inflicting pain, nothing took away the sight of the disgust in her eyes at him, the fear and all the other things he saw. She had reflected back to him what he was, and he was beyond disgusted. Now he was just tired, tired of the dance of need between himself and Hannibal.

He would never be able to stop lapping at Hannibal like one of his dogs, desperate for validation. His attempts to leave had taught him that, as had the horrible thoughts of Hannibal’s death that swirled in his mind, and then were hastily replaced with panic. That he panicked told him enough. He was dependent, and he hated it.

  
He wondered if Hannibal could feel the seething rage. He had to. He must. Will knew, perhaps more than anyone, how intelligent and observant the doctor was, how adept at understanding the things people kept hidden. He was better even than Will at it, and Will pried people’s secrets out of blood spatter for a living.

  
“Something wrong, Will?” Hannibal’s voice intruded into his thoughts without being intrusive. It was so smooth, so very smooth. It was Hannibal’s way with everything: so quiet, so smooth, so unobtrusive that you didn’t realize he had been staring at you for hours, the way a snake watches for prey.

  
Will swallowed, knowing he was treading dangerous ground, and should be careful. At the same time, he was beyond tired, weary of the things they did, the things he wanted to do, for Hannibal. Not even sure why he did it, he set his fork down and lifted his napkin off his lap, dropping it onto the table by his plate.

  
Hannibal took all this in with the calm, collected eyes but said nothing.

  
“For some reason, I seem to have lost my appetite” Will said, though he knew exactly why.

  
“You should eat Will, after all, we took such care in obtaining the feast.” It was a calculated statement from Hannibal, a feint and method of control that Will was so used to. It grated on his nerves. He could see all the slight-of-hand manipulations now, and they turned his stomach.

  
“No, I’m really not very hungry.” The sound of his chair scraping back had an empty ring of finality to it, and he didn’t even turn back around to see the curious, confused and disapproving look on Hannibal’s face. He was done turning around to see what Hannibal did. He knew turning his back on a man like that may have been dangerous, but he also knew the man well enough to know he liked to set traps, to sit, to wait. He wouldn’t expect Will to move first, and Will intended to use that against him. Will knew killing him wouldn’t do that.

Hannibal Lecter would smile as he died, knowing he had wrought such a desperate move from Will. No. Everything that Hannibal…loved wouldn’t work…but wanted, felt he owned, had to be taken away from him. Everything that brought him some level of pleasure had to be taken from him.

  
Will passed from the dining room to the kitchen, knowing it was probably the last time he would do so, and even though he was sure Hannibal wouldn’t stop him, cold air seemed to race down his spine as he left because the sense of turning his back on a wild – and beautiful – animal simply could not be avoided. He quickened his steps and left.

  
**  
Will's eyes were dark as he sat behind the witness stand, feeling the choke of his borrowed tie. It was one of Hannibal's. He'd taken it last week, after the last time they had..Removed someone rude from this world. Hannibal had bought him a suit. A suit that he refused now to wear.

  
"I think we have enough evidence, ladies and gentlemen." The evidence referred to had all been supplied by Will.

  
Hannibal stared at Will, his stone cold poker face on, as it always was. Will's teeth ground together. He was on the edge of giving testimony that would irreconcilably send them both to jail, Hannibal for life and probably Will for that long as well, couldn't the man at least sweat??

  
His eyes fixed on Hannibal's, and damn the man, he was almost smiling. He must not believe I would take us both down, Will realized. The smile on the psychiatrist's face was one of confidence, and Will wished, beyond little else that he could make that man's face break. Make him feel.

  
"Any last remarks, Mr.. Graham?"

  
"Yes," Will said, eyes entirely fixed on Hannibal. The handcuffs on Doctor Lecter clashed horribly with the expensive silken three piece suit. It occurred to Will that when in jail, Hannibal wouldn't be allowed those suits. The silken textures, the bright ties, the rich food, the soft, plush chairs...

  
...the spray of arterial blood, so bright against linen, the dark purple flowering of bruises on Will's skin, the pained look of pride and submission and repressed discuss on Will's face after he'd goaded, pushed and silkily seduced him into a kill....

  
..Will pushed those images away, added them to all the things he was taking from Hannibal Lecter.

  
He should have been doing it for himself. Maybe he was. But Will Graham, by now, saw himself a broken thing not worth saving, not worth doing anthing for. It was why he was going down with Hannibal. He deserved it. For what he let himself do, to them...to Abigail.

  
"Hannibal Lecter is guilty of murder, of deceit, of lies. I listened to those lies and allowed him to release a monster from inside myself. I can only hope, if there is a God, he takes into account I stopped the monsters."

  
The smallest trace of disappointment flickered in Hannibal's face, and then his mouth lowered, jaw dropped, the look of someone utterly and absolutely betrayed. Then he pushed his lips together in anger.  
In anger.

  
Will languished in that provoked emotion, that crack in Hannibal Lecter's armor, as sentence was passed, and held that image with him as they were both lead out of the courtroom to what was to be their iron-clad lives.


End file.
